Geoffrey Toye
Edward Geoffrey Toye (17 February 1889 – 11 June 1942), known as Geoffrey Toye, was an English
producer.He is best remembered as a musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and for his association with Sadler's Wells Theatre. One of his ballets, The Haunted Ballroom (1934), became popular and was revived several times, and the new overture that he prepared for Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore in 1919 became the standard version.
Life and career
Born in Winchester, Hampshire, Toye was the younger son of Arlingham James Toye and his wife Alice Fayrer née Coates.[1] Toye's father was a housemaster at Winchester College, who for many years ran a music society for the boys.[2] His elder brother Francis Toye was also a composer and musician.[3]
Early years
Toye studied at the
By 1913 Toye was conducting in major London theatres – for
Toye joined the Army in 1914, first as a private in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and later in the Royal Flying Corps, in which he served in France as a photographic specialist. He retired with the rank of major.[4] For a time after the war he was a member of the insurers Lloyd's of London, where he organised many amateur musical activities and founded the Lloyd's Choir.[12] He was engaged as assistant conductor of the Beecham Opera Company and also conducted concerts for the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1918 and 1919.[13]
Later years
Toye, who had already been made a governor of the
From 1934 to 1936, Toye became Managing Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, working alongside the Artistic Director, Sir Thomas Beecham. Despite early successes, Toye and Beecham eventually fell out over Toye's insistence on bringing in a popular film star, Grace Moore, to sing Mimi in La bohème. The production was a box-office success, but an artistic failure.[26] Beecham manoeuvred Toye out of the managing directorship in what Sir Adrian Boult described as an 'absolutely beastly' manner.[27]
Toye obtained the film rights to the
In 1940, Toye joined the staff of the
Toye died in London at the age of 53.
Compositions and recordings
In addition to his ballets, Toye's compositions included several books of songs (including some
Toye made very few gramophone records. For HMV, in 1928, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recordings of Delius's Brigg Fair, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, and In a Summer Garden. The composer wrote, "All three... are excellent and I shall be glad to have them sold as authorised by me."[33] Toye also recorded The Walk to the Paradise Garden in 1929.
Toye's overture to Ruddigore has been recorded numerous times, conducted by Harry Norris, Isidore Godfrey, and Sir Malcolm Sargent (who each recorded the complete opera) and Sir Charles Mackerras, among others. Norris, Godfrey and Sargent all observe some or all of Toye's cuts and other minor alterations in the score.[34] Toye's only recording conducting a Gilbert and Sullivan work is the 1938 film of The Mikado referred to above. Of Toye's original music, the waltz from The Haunted Ballroom has been recorded several times,[35] including one in the 1990s by the Marco Polo record label.[12] A complete recording of the ballet was made in 2001 by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.[23]
Notes
- ^ "Toye, (John) Francis". Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 4 August 2010 (subscription required)
- ^ Chislett, W A. Sleeve notes to EMI LP TWO 295, 1970
- ^ Weedon, Robert. "Geoffrey Toye", War Composers: The Music of World War 1, accessed October 21, 2021
- ^ a b c d The Times 12 June 1947, p. 7
- ^ The Times, 4 July 1906, p. 3
- ^ The Times, 29 July 1909, p. 11
- ^ The Times 22 November 1911, p. 10; and 18 March 1912, p. 12
- ^ The Times, 1 September 1913, p. 8
- ^ Mann, William. Liner notes to EMI CD CDM 7 64017 2, 1987
- ^ The Musical Times, Vol. 107, No. 1483 (September 1966), pp. 769-71
- ^ Boult, p. 32
- ^ a b c d Scowcroft, Philip L. "Some British Conductor-Composers", part 3, MusicWeb-International.com (1997)
- ^ a b c Stone, David. "Geoffrey Toye". Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (2001)
- ^ Rollins and Witts, Appendix pp. I and II
- ^ Hughes, p. 138.
- ^ Shepherd, Marc. Discussion of Toye's Ruddigore overture, Archived 16 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine A Gilbert and Sullivan Discography
- ^ The Musical Times, November 1919, p. 626
- ^ "Broadcasting", The Times, 20 March 1925, p. 6; and 7 February 1927, p. 4
- ^ The Times, 13 December 1927, p. 18
- ^ The Times, 15 November 1932, p. 12
- ^ The Musical Times, 1 November 1932, pp. 1036-37
- ^ The Times 16 November 1932, p. 12
- ^ a b c Lace, Ian. Review of 2001 recording of Tribute to Madam, which includes several of Ninette de Valois's ballets, including The Haunted Ballroom, MusicWeb.UK.net 1 November 2001
- London Festival Balletin 1965 (The Times, 2 April 1965, p. 17).
- ^ Dance Chronicle, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1996), pp. 17-92
- ^ Jefferson, p. 175
- ^ Kennedy, p. 174
- ^ Shepherd, Marc. The Mikado, 1938 film, Archived 17 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine A Gilbert and Sullivan Discography
- ^ IMDB
- ^ The Times, 27 February 1915, p. 1
- Herald30 April 1992 and 30 May 1992
- ^ Eleanor (born 1894) first married Joseph Remington Charter in 1923 and then Joseph Richard Bishop, with whom she had a son Francis Peregrine Bishop and a daughter Jennifer Gay Bishop. Jennifer was a principal soprano with D`Oyly Carte between 1954 and 1965, using her uncles' name, Toye, as her stage name. See, Stone, David. "Jennifer Toye". Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 27 May 2004, accessed 25 August 2010
- ^ See Discography, London Symphony Orchestra website. Delius's helper and amanuensis, Eric Fenby stated that when Delius was close to death, Fenby played him Toye's recording of In a Summer Garden, the last music, Fenby says, that Delius ever heard. See Fenby (1981), p. 221
- ^ Summary of Ruddigore recordings at the G&S Discography Archived 9 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Information about recordings of The Haunted Ballroom
References
- Boult, Adrian (1979). Music and Friends. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-10178-6.
- Fenby, Eric (1981). Delius As I Knew Him. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-11836-4. (First published by G Bell & Sons in 1936)
- Jefferson, Alan (1979). Sir Thomas Beecham. London: Macdonald and Jane's. ISBN 0-354-04205-X.
- OCLC 464204390.
- ISBN 0-333-48752-4.
- Rollins, Cyril; R. John Witts (1961). The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. London: Michael Joseph, Ltd. OCLC 504581419.
External links
- LSO discography
- Geoffrey Toye at IMDb